


The Inter-Planetary Lonely Hearts Club

by MasterOfAllImagination



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M, and just look at that title i mean is that pretentious or what, basically i was lonely and i wrote this as a form of therapy, elements of an epistolary in the form of text messages, i swore i was gonna change it but now i kinda like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/pseuds/MasterOfAllImagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"He held two pieces of frozen meat in his hands: in his left, a plastic-wrapped Styrofoam carton of turkey breast.  In his right, a Cornish hen.</i>  </p><p>Yes, <i>Young thought to himself,</i> things like this have become the important choices in my life.  Once I had the weight of the responsibility of sixty peoples’ lives on my shoulders.  Now, I can’t even decide what to buy at the supermarket."  </p><p>By an unknown miracle, Destiny's crew-- and the ship itself-- are delivered to Earth.  Three months pass.  Rush stays on board and continues his research, and most of the crew move on with their lives.  Young doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wednesday Afternoon

Destiny had been home for three months, but Earth had never felt less welcoming. Young and the rest of the ship’s remaining SGC crew had been offered six months’ leave, and all of them had taken it. Young was starting to regret the fact. He had decided to keep his hair long-- it definitely wasn’t regulation length anymore, curling black around his ears and temples, but neither O’Neill nor anyone else at Homeworld Command had commented on it.

In any case, the SGC was so glad to have the Destiny’s people (read: a mostly-functioning Ancient ship) back that they probably would have let Young get away with murder. Or at least paid for his defense attorney. His hair was, to use a turn of phrase he had once heard from Eli, fish sticks compared to the whale.

No, the _big_ matter here was what he was going to have for dinner.

He held two pieces of frozen meat in his hands: in his left, a plastic-wrapped Styrofoam carton of turkey breast. In his right, a Cornish hen.

_Yes_ , he thought to himself, _things like this have become the important choices in my life. Once I had the weight of the responsibility of sixty peoples’ lives on my shoulders. Now, I can’t even decide what to buy at the supermarket._

He looked up at the shoppers around him, suddenly self-conscious. As though it somehow wasn’t fitting for a colonel to be seen in a Price Chopper. No one even so much as glanced his way. To his embarrassment, he caught himself half expecting to see Scott come around the next aisle, snap off a salute and a crisp “sir!”, and continue on to the condiments section. Then he shook it off, threw down the turkey without looking (the Cornish hen had cooking directions on the packaging, and the turkey had none), and stalked off with his ridiculous blue plastic basket towards the checkout lines.

The teenager who rang up the hen, a bar of soap, two six packs, a shower rod and a prepaid phone card for him treated him like any other customer. She was quite obviously bored, and gave him his change with indifference, already looking to the next person in line even before Young had had a chance to pick up his two plastic bags.

Young had to keep reminding himself as the automatic doors opened for him onto the slightly overwarm spring day that, outside of SGC, he was a civilian. Just an average Joe who did his groceries on Wednesdays and drove a shitty car. His eyes flitted briefly to the sky, and then to the parking lot, casting around for said car. It was around somewhere.

And he sighed, because even though he knew, logically, that he was no longer a colonel, and Destiny was somewhere in orbit around Mars (it was so large it posed the risk of being spotted by amateur astronomers and therefore couldn’t be kept locally), which was close on a cosmic scale (and especially close considering just how _far away_ from Earth it once was)-- it might as well be halfway across the universe for all Young had access to it.

It bothered him a bit that for some reason he just couldn’t accept that fact, but what bothered him even more was the sneaking suspicion that he missed Destiny.

Halfway through putting his bags in his trunk his movements slowed to glacial speed, caught like flies in the honey of his thoughts. The thing that finally jerked him out of it was the beep of a car horn to his right.

He took his damn sweet time shutting the trunk and walking around to the front door so that the impatient prick in the teal beater could pass.

Well, maybe he did miss Destiny. Okay. Fine. He could acknowledge the fact, but he sure as _hell_ didn’t have to think about it.

He drove home going fifty-five in a forty zone, and didn’t even notice.

* * *

 

“You’re needed at Homeworld Command,” said a young lieutenant with his head stuck around the doorframe.

“Wait wait wait,” Rush protested as the lieutenant began to leave. With slow and obvious reluctance he retraced his steps and stood in the doorway expectantly. “On whose authority?” Rush demanded to know.

“General O’Neill wants a debriefing.” The lieutenant was attempting to stealthily sneak back into the hallway-- Rush was, by now, well acquainted with most of the Destiny’s research and military staff, and as such _they_ were well acquainted with his carefully cultivated misanthropic manner. This was as it should be. Rush did not encourage the disruption of his work by hangers-on and incompetent fools. Properly cataloguing and repairing Destiny’s systems already required all of his concentration and then some.

“Have Eli go,” Rush said, returning to his diagnostic.

“Eli is already going.”

“Then you don’t need me.”

Behind him, Rush heard the lieutenant let out an impatient breath. Rush silently hoped that he was close to giving up. He could deal with O’Neill’s unreasonable demands later-- for the moment, the diagnostic on Destiny’s air intake manifold was giving him trouble, and it required immediate attention. In fact, he was just about to leave the room when the insufferable messenger boy blocked his way.

Unable to affect physical intimidation, Rush did his best to don a visage carefully calculated to impart maximum levels of scathing impatience.

Sadly, the lieutenant was already at the end of his tether, and merely replied, “Take it up with the general, sir. I’m just the messenger.”

That was it. Rush couldn’t work like this. Hadn’t one of his conditions for staying aboard the Destiny and assisting with its study been that he would be free to work _unmolested_? “I think I will, thanks.” Rush brushed past the lieutenant and headed for the control interface room. There were a few scientists downloading the engineering database-- Brody might have been among them, Rush didn’t care enough to stop and look properly-- but they scattered when Rush barked “out!” at them.

Dialing Stargate Command was the work of moments. And when he had intimidated enough receptionists and that ubiquitous balding man with the glasses, O’Neill’s face appeared on the screen in front of him.

“This had better be good, Rush. But I don’t think it’s gonna be, because I think I know what this is about, and I’m going to give Walter hell for getting you through to this channel.”

Rush mentally steeled himself for the coming interview. It was best to project an air of respect when speaking to the general. Military types all shared a love of deference in common. Accordingly, he pushed down three fifths of his annoyance and managed to convey a pained sort of patience to the man. “General O’Neill. I’ve just been informed that you’ve requested a debriefing planetside--”

O’Neill groaned, loudly and theatrically. Rush purposefully ignored it and continued. “I’m in the middle of some important work here. If you’d only be reasonable, I’m sure Eli can handle--”

“Whatever you’re in the middle of will still have a middle to be worked on when you get back. Er.” O’Neill scratched his head. “That made more sense in my head. Anyway. Point is, I really don’t care, Rush. Can your excuses. You’d better have your ass on the next shuttle planetside in twelve hours, or so help me you will be on the one after that, and that one won’t have a return trip.”

Screw diplomacy. The man was impossible, and openly threatening him. “You're bluffing,” Rush snapped.

O’Neill leaned forward at his desk, causing his face to grow larger on Rush’s display. His voice dropped a bit. The act was an evolutionary tactic meant to elicit fear through use of superior size as a way of exerting dominance, but the effect did not transfer well through thousands of kilometers and the smaller-than-life display on a screen. “You may think you’re irreplaceable, doc, but lemme tell you something: you’re wrong.”

Rush had been expecting something a little more pompous and long-winded, but for all that he was failing at intimidation, O’Neill certainly knew how to raise a bet. So Rush was expendable, was he? The very thought of it! The nerve of the man!

He shook the hair out of his eyes. He hadn’t cut it since Destiny had been back, and he had left his elastic in his quarters. “Colonel Young thought the same thing, once. He learned his lesson. The hard way."  _That_ story had raised some eyebrows. But in exchange for full disclosure of the events of Destiny’s eight-year jaunt through space with her human crew, Homeworld Command had granted amnesty for every member of the expedition.

“Fine,” O’Neill said, leaning back. “Maybe he can teach me. I’m calling him in too. Although, you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks.”

If Rush was not mistaken, O’Neill’s tone turned nasty at the end of that sentence. Apparently, the man was capable of something other than rote sarcasm and unoriginal witticisms. A crack in his façade of civility. Rush sought to drive a wedge through it.

“Why don’t you just bring in Volker and Brody while you’re at it? Maybe even Park? If absolutely irrelevant personnel like Colonel Young are needed at this briefing, that is.”

Unfortunately, Rush pushed his enmity a bit too far, because it was just what O’Neill needed to realize that the conversation would get out of line and out of hand very soon if he didn’t reign it in. A shame. Rush had better luck controlling other people when they were emotionally roused.

“Funny you should mention them, because they’re invited too.”

“Great. Just great. Anyone else being dragged off of _vitally important research_ for a useless debriefing that could just as easily take place over comm channels?”

“Who says this briefing isn’t, as you say, _vitally important_?”

“They rarely are.”

The general decided to cut his losses and run. _The only smart decision he’s made in the past ten minutes_ , Rush thought.

“Twelve hours. Don’t be late.” O’Neill cut the transmission.

Rush leaned with his hands braced wide against the display, looking down at the blank screen, rolling his shoulders a bit. He could see that his bid for autonomy had failed, but he was already busy mentally planning out his next eleven and a half hours so as to wrap up as many of his projects as possible before he had to catch that shuttle and endure an interminable four-hour flight to Earth in a cramped shuttlecraft alongside his old science team.  He pushed off of the display and made for the diagnostic he had been running before this whole inopportune interruption, but unfortunately Eli waylaid him in the corridor.

“Hey!” the man-child exclaimed, clapping him on the back with one hand and brandishing a power bar with the other. Rush flinched. “Did you hear? We’re getting the band back together!”

“Yeah. I heard,” Rush muttered, continuing past him.

Bitterly, he thought, _I can’t wait_.


	2. A Bit of Mental Math

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conflict? What is conflict? Plot development??!? I am not familiar with these terms.
> 
> Instead, have a couple thousand words of two idiots texting.

Boredom was the watchword of Young’s days. What did a divorced colonel do on vacation? It sounded like the lead-up to a bad joke.  
  
Hell, his whole _life_ was beginning to look like a bad joke. Takeout boxes adorned the coffee table. Beer bottles kept turning up like bad pennies. On the nights when the supermarket lager ran out, the bar down the street from his apartment was becoming quite familiar with his face.

It hadn’t started out like this. Their second week back, after everything and everyone had had a chance to settle, Young had gone to see Scott and Chloe and little one-year-old Alan. Scott had answered the door with one hand on the frame, still wearing the wedding ring Young had given him.  
  
“ _I’m not using it anymore_ ,” Young had told him bitterly, that day three years ago on the ship when Scott had come to him in quiet hours and told his commanding officer of his plan to ask Chloe to marry him. And it was true-- he had stopped wearing it a year into Destiny’s mission.  After the divorce.  And truth be told, sometimes it was an act of sheer willpower that kept him from slipping it on in the mornings, out of either habit or loneliness or regret or something more prickly that he still didn’t want to put a name to.  
  
He had figured it was best that Scott have it. Keep temptation at bay. Scott had accepted it reluctantly, and only after being thrown choice pieces of logic (the boy was always a bit thick-headed) like the practical “You can rustle up Chloe a ring from one of the crewmembers, or make one, I don’t care, but you’re not going to find one for yourself anytime soon” and the joking “you’ve gotta have some way to let the other women know that you’re taken” and finally, the semi-paternal “women give their daughters their rings. Well, I’m giving you mine,” and that had been the real clincher.  
  
It reassured him that he had kept it. It meant that something had stayed the same after Destiny’s miraculous return.  
  
Seeing two of his crewmembers return to their lives was great. Fine. Wonderful. Fantastic, even. He had sat at their perfectly suburban kitchen table and talked to Scott over a cup of coffee, and Chloe had wandered in a bit later, sitting beside her husband and dandling the baby on her knee.  
  
They’d been happy, and Earth hadn’t seemed like such an empty promise in those first few weeks that her crew was home. Scott’s family was obviously thriving. Greer and Park were vacationing somewhere tropical, and last Young had heard they were still traveling, three months later. Good for them.  
  
Camile had hooked up with her partner. Actually, Young had been able to witness their reunion (heaven knows how she managed to even find _out_ \-- they themselves hadn’t even known what was happening at the time), and his chest had ached to see Camile catch sight of-- Sharon, wasn’t it?-- and break away from them, running into her partner’s arms and staying there.  
  
And, really, those romantic comedies didn’t do it any sort of justice, because Young had had to turn away. You can’t really watch something that intense for any extended period of time.  
  
Of course, there was Eli, too, who had gone to see his mom for a couple of weeks before flying back to Mars to help with the study of Destiny. He often wondered what use the ship was, now, that it wasn’t actively seeking to fulfill its mission. Homeworld Command seemed to know, but they sure as hell weren’t sharing that information with him.  
  
And Rush. Rush hadn’t even wanted to gate through to Earth, but orders were orders. Debriefing and medical evaluations planetside had been mandatory. And Young recalled precisely the way he had managed to convince Rush to go: one hand on his shoulder, head inclined a bit to look the man in the eye, a low surety to his voice. His best calming tones.  
  
Rush had gone. Halfway to the gate, he’d turned back. Stuck out his hand.  
  
 _“It’s been an adventure.”_  
  
 _“It’s been a pleasure.”_  
  
He hadn’t seen the man in the three months since they’d been back. He assumed that he was still on Destiny, his hair falling in his face, snapping at everyone who didn’t automatically synch up to his wavelength, tormenting Eli. Same old, same old.  
  
Young’s apartment was at just the right level of soft grey darkness only achieved in a room lit by the rays of a waning sun through medium-weight curtains. A few moments of fishing produced his disused phone from his jeans’ pocket.  
  
He didn’t have Rush’s number, but Eli had made it a special point to confiscate his phone and forcibly enter his own into its contacts when they had said goodbye outside the SGC. And Eli could probably get him Rush’s number.  His fingers hovered over the keys, typed out a few letters, and then erased them. Repeated the action. Eventually, he sent

> **7:08 pm**  
>  Hows it going, Eli?

Then he picked up the remote and flicked on a sports channel. If questioned about the game later, Young would not have been able to say definitively what teams were playing, who won, or even what sport it was.  
  
The grey plastic RadioShack phone that had come screwed into the apartment’s wall rang about an hour later.  
  
“Hello?” he answered it.  
  
“Colonel Young?”  
  
“Sir,” Young said when he recognized General O’Neill’s voice.  
  
“Stand down, colonel,” O’Neill said, probably only jokingly, but Young unconsciously relaxed his stance. “What are you doing a week from now?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
O’Neill paused for a moment, startled by Young’s extraordinarily quick response. “O-kayyy… in that case, could you come in for a bit of an unofficial meeting… say… Tuesday? Nine a.m., ish? Not this coming Tuesday, the one after it.”  
  
“Ah… of course.” Young switched the phone to his other hand and rubbed his knotted eyebrows. “Off the record?”  
  
“Oh, no, no, I just haven’t cleared it with the president yet.”  
  
 _Cleared what?_ Generals didn’t ask permission to hold meetings. This was to be something more.  
  
“Who else will be in attendance?”  
  
“Everyone. I’ve only got Rush and his science team on board so far, but they had to come first, since they’re flying in from Mars probably as we speak. Rush thinks the meeting’s two days from now, but that’s just a line of bullshit I fed him so I could schedule the Area 51 people some time with him. We’re gonna tell him the meeting has been pushed back.”  
  
Young smiled. “He’ll see right through it, sir.”  
  
“I’m counting on it. Man needs to be taken down a couple notches.”  
  
O’Neill received a crackling variation in the line of static: Young’s low chuckle.  
  
“I’ve tried, sir.” A hesitation as a question arose in Young’s mind. “What’s, what’s this all about, anyway, sir?”  
  
“Classified.”  
  
“Right.” His tone went flat.  
  
“Loosen up, colonel. You’ll find out next Tuesday.”  
  
O’Neill hung up on Young. Everyone, he’d said. Classified. Young’s mind raced with the possibilities, and they all swung back around to Destiny. But maybe that was just because he’d been thinking about the ship so much of late.  
  
 _I thought you had decided not to do that?_ Young accused himself. Where willpower was concerned, he had always been a bad performer. TJ sprang to mind in particular.  He pulled out his phone to enter the date into his calendar and noticed that he had a new message.

**8:15 pm**  
colonel young!!! :DD we just landed I cnt believe it ur timing is amaze!

> **8:24 pm**  
>  In that case welcome home. Is Rush with you?

**8:24 pm**  
yah but y?

> **8:26 pm**  
>  Just wondering.

**8:27 pm**  
u wanna talk 2 him

Suddenly afraid that Eli would give Rush his phone, Young frantically sent,

> **8:27 pm**  
>  NO

And then followed up with,

> **8:27 pm  
> ** I just need his number.

**8:30 pm**  
i got u ;)

_Not entirely sure what that’s supposed to mean._ In any case, it didn’t seem to warrant a reply, so Young put his phone back in his pocket and leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. A moment later his phone buzzed again.

**8:37 pm**  
this was hard u owe me big time. c u @ th dbriefing : )  
719-889-2157

Young entered the number into his contacts, but paused on the “compose new message” screen. It was almost nine at night, so some quick mental calculation meant that it was about seven in Colorado. That was too early of an hour to logically convince himself that it was too late to be texting someone. But they had just spent four hours in a shuttlecraft, and their circadian cycles were probably off, and therefore likely to be tired. Rush would be cranky, and might not even respond at all.

He turned the phone over in his hands. If he were still on Destiny, he’d probably be on the bridge at this point, about to go off shift. He would make his way down corridors with their lights dimmed to simulate night and make his customary detour to the control interface room, where Rush could usually be found working. The man claimed less people bothered him there. Strangely enough, Young didn’t seem to count as a bother when he stopped off at the end of each shift to say a simple “goodnight.”

_Screw it._ Young typed quickly.

> **8:55 pm**  
>  Rush? This is Young.

Young watched a bit more of the game. The flickering light of the TV and the increasingly dark apartment joined forces to hypnotize him into sleeping where he was, slouched on the couch, head back, legs wide, the remote inches away from his left hand and his phone still loosely curled in his right.

Hours later, the vibration of his phone startled Young wide awake.

**11:35 pm**  
how did you get this #

It was Rush.

> _\--Would you like to set a profile picture for this contact?_

Young pressed “no,” then fumbled in his haste to compose a response.

> **11:36 pm**  
>  Eli gave it to me

**11:37 pm**  
do not contact me again

Young sat back and blew out a long breath. He hadn’t had any real idea of what response he was hoping to get from Rush, but _that_ had not been it. God. His eyes were heavy. He looked around in vain for a clock in the darkness before belatedly remembering to look at his phone.

_Nine thirty in Colorado. He’s still up. He bothered to respond._ So he pushed his luck and texted him back.

> **11:39 pm**  
>  Why not?

Young tried to keep his eyes open and wait for a response; he really, really did. But then he blinked.

When next his phone vibrated, he slept through it, and awoke the next morning in the same position he had fallen asleep in, albeit with a killer crick in his neck. His hand accidentally knocked the remote to the floor, spilling its batteries. The phone he still held safely.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he absently checked it.

**3:42 am**  
no time for distractions

Lacking context, the message made absolutely no sense. He scrolled through his “sent” messages, and last night came rushing back to him, filling the gap of forgetfulness left behind by deep sleep. Getting the call from O’Neill. Texting Rush on a whim. Falling asleep in front of the (still playing) TV.

Young got up, stretched, yawned, readjusted his mussed t-shirt, and wandered to the kitchen. The fridge was empty but for half a loaf of bread, half a jug of orange juice, half a stick of butter, and half a carton of cottage cheese.  Looked like breakfast was served.

With the toast browning away in the toaster and a glass of OJ held to his lips, Young pulled out his phone again. He sipped the juice.

> **9:22 am**  
>  Am I a distraction?

It was almost a compliment, in a way. It would imply a level of attention expended on Young by Rush. He hadn’t thought the man willing to put forth any effort into continuing on Earth the truce and maybe (maybe) good working relationship they had developed in their last years on Destiny.

_Did I even want him to?_ Young mused, chewing slightly tough toast. He put more butter on it. As an afterthought, the cottage cheese followed. The combination wasn’t unpleasant. Focusing on its taste gave him an excuse to not answer his self-posed question.

Long after he had finished eating he remained seated with his empty plate in front of him. Then his phone vibrated. He went for it almost immediately.

> _\--1 New Message: Nicholas Rush_

Withholding his thumb was harder than it should have been. His dismay at his disproportionate eagerness was eventually trumped by curiosity.  The man had told him not to contact him again, yet here he was, returning his messages. Rush never did anything without a reason. Or a plan. Typically a well-thought-out plan already ten steps ahead of whatever Young was planning.

Young somehow managed to make the slight rise of one eyebrow look resigned, an emotion not normally expressed by eyebrows. He opened the text.

**9:42 am**  
annoyances usually are

Despite himself, Young smiled, because he could imagine exactly the tone of voice Rush would have used to say that. An annoyance, eh? He could think of worse things. Hell, Rush had _definitely_ called him worse before.  Before he knew what he was doing his thumbs were already moving.

> **9:42 am**  
>  Whatever youre working on can wait. You need a vacation.

**9:46 am**  
im afraid you can no longer order me around colonel

> **9:46 am**  
>  What work do you have to do planetside, anyway?

**9:58 am**  
youre like a dog with a bone why dont you give it a rest

> **10:00 am**  
>  If YOUD rest for once maybe I would.

There was radio silence after that. Young knew better than to take it as a sign that Rush had finally accepted his advice. It would be grossly out of character for Rush to suddenly start acquiescing now, after-- what, eight years of stubbornness?  
Young dumped his dishes in the sink and left his apartment. His keys jangled in one pocket while his phone rested in the other.

The neighborhood Gold’s was just around the corner, a remnant straight out of a 1970s movie, and stocked with equipment from a comparable decade. Still. It was cheap, close, and relatively quiet, which made it a perfect place for a morning workout. He changed into mostly-clean sweats in the locker room and stuffed his earbuds in place.

Five miles on the treadmill passed in a blur, the stained wall opposite replaced in his mind’s eye by Destiny’s metal-walled corridors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not my fault if my characterizations of Young and Rush sound a wee bit like cleanwhiteroom's, okay? Assimilation of a writer's style is practically inevitable after one reads approximately 700,000 words of their brilliant work. But, I assure you, any similarities are entirely unintentional.


	3. Coffee Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure the apocalypse must be near, because lo and behold, I have updated. Check the horizon, people. The Horsemen are probably on their way.

Rush was _furious_. There was no other adjective for it. Livid, seething, irate, _fumin_ g-- none of them did the justice to his emotion that _furious_ did. Eli was too afraid to even walk next to him on the way across the helipad to the waiting helicopter, instead walking a few steps behind and to the left, occasionally saying inane things like “it wasn’t _that_ bad!” and “maybe if you cooperated a bit more with them they wouldn’t have to do this type of thing?” in that infuriating, half-questioning tone of his that made him sound like an insecure fifth grader. Perhaps if he shared his observation it would embarrass Eli enough to make him think better of using such an annoying tone in the future.  
  
“You sound like a child,” Rush seethed, not even bothering to turn around.  
  
“Well you’re _acting_ like one!” Eli shot back. “Come on, it’s just a week planetside, you could use a little R &R! You haven’t even been off Destiny since we got home!”  
  
“Why does everyone keep telling me that?” Rush spat, frustrated, looking heavenward towards a god he hadn’t believed in since the age of five for an elusive answer.  
  
“Because it’s the truth.” Eli was almost certain that this corroboration of his claim would win a point in his favor, but Rush was quick to disillusion him.  
  
“Don’t you wonder how we got home in the first place?”  
  
“Well, yeah, but, um, what does this have to do with--”  
  
“But _nothing_. I’m trying to find out how Destiny traveled billions of light years in the blink of an eye and brought us back home. And that--” Rush stopped, whirled, and held up a single menacing finger as a punctuation to the point the was making-- “is much more important than ‘R &R.’” And with that, he continued his stalk towards the waiting helicopter, his unwashed hair tousled into straw-like strands by the ferocious beat of the helicopter’s blades.  
  
“You’re gonna mope the entire ride, aren’t you?” Eli whined.  
  
Rush ignored him. He grabbed one of the handholds and swung himself into the cockpit, immediately strapping mufflers over his ears, in part to block out Eli and in part to provide a bit of silence. He had tried contacting O’Neill that morning as soon as he realized that the car sent to pick them up from the hotel was not taking them into D.C. But the general was ignoring all his calls, and even that idiot Walder or whatever his name was hadn’t helped him.  
  
Instead, they had driven ten miles to some small army airport on the edge of the capitol and flown five hours to the middle of the Nevada desert, been informed perfunctorily that the debriefing had been pushed back a week, and blatantly manipulated into hand-holding the resident Area 51 morons through three months of his research, something Rush neither had time nor interest in doing. Accordingly, he had pawned most of them off onto Eli the second hour and slipped away to get some real work done.  
  
Unfortunately, he hadn’t entered the biometric scanners into his calculations, and his freedom was short lived.  
  
And now he was faced with another five-hour return flight, and this time he was going to sit _on the opposite end of the plane_ from Eli. Damn, he _really_ needed a coffee. Rubbing his temples repeatedly was not helping his headache. Even though Rush had kicked his caffeine habit cold-turkey those first few weeks aboard Destiny, he saw no practical reason to continue to abstain. The research team had coffee in their rations; therefore, he had resumed consumption of his vice almost immediately upon Destiny’s return.  
  
Eli had gotten in and was prattering on about some gadget or another some Area 51 lackey had shown him earlier, and Rush could not care less. He pulled out his recently re-acquired phone, which had been taken from him when they’d entered the base, and turned it back on.  
  
 _“This is ridiculous,”_ he’d muttered when they’d asked for it.  
  
 _“Sorry. Policy.”_ The guard had held out a hand for it.  
  
With every ounce of ill-grace he could muster, Rush had slapped it into his hand without looking and marched right on past.

> _\--1 New Message: Young_

It was dated nine hours ago, just as they’d been getting on the plane. Rush opened it.

> **10:00 am**  
>  If YOUD rest for once maybe I would.

Rush exhaled all his breath sharply and put the phone away again. Eli glanced up, curious.  
  
“Whoooooo’re you texting?” he asked, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees. His voice came through the built-in microphones in the mufflers over his ears.

“No one,” Rush said simply, staring out the window.  
  
“Then what were you laughing at?”  
  
“Was I?”  
  
“Yeah. When you do that breath-thing it means you thought something was funny.”  
  
Rush looked away from the window, his curiosity shifting, and he dropped his hand from his chin, leaning forward a bit. “Come now, Eli,” he admonished. “I know that you know that I know you know who it was.”  
  
“For the record, I completely understood that _completely_ redundant sentence, so stop trying to distract me. And, also for the record, I _totally know it’s Young_! I just wanted to make you. You know. Admit it.” The satisfied bastard sat back with a smug little grin on his face.  
  
“Yeah, well. Mystery solved. Don’t bother me for the next five hours.”  
  
They got the heads-up from the pilot that they were about to take off, and both of them grabbed handholds as the helicopter lurched. For safety reasons, the airstrip where their semi-private army jet was waiting to take them back east was a few miles out from the actual base. Unfortunately, beaming technology was out of the question as there were no ships in orbit, and therefore the whole arduous cross-country journey had to be undertaken by more mundane means.  
  
While Eli was busy staring transfixed out of the window-- really, he’d seen much more spectacular sights in his time aboard Destiny, and Rush could not fathom why he was so fascinated at ruddy rock-- he took out his phone again and typed something quickly.

**7:17 pm**  
my work is classified  
  
When the helicopter was landing at the airstrip, Rush received a response.

> **7:23 pm**  
>  BUllshit

The typo revealed to Rush that Young had probably replied in an angry hurry to Rush’s evasion. It was just like the colonel to get irrationally angry over the littlest things After all that they had been through the man still did not trust his word. Notwithstanding, he laughed loudly and noticeably, for Eli’s benefit, but Eli just shook his head in amusement and took out his own phone. Rush, for his part, decided that the word “bullshit” did not merit a response.  
  
Rush ran his thumb harshly over the “lock” button twice before shoving his phone back into the pocket of his tweed jacket. The jacket was not much suited to the desert climate, but how could he have been expected to dress sensibly when he had not been informed of his destination?  
  
And then he was seething anew over the myriad, blatant injustices that had been dealt to him over the past two days, from being pulled away from his important work on Destiny to being shunted halfway across the country on a fool’s errand at a mediocre research facility. If he had been subjected to this kind of treatment during his professorship at Berkeley, he would have quit outright.  
  
But there was Destiny to consider. She was the one thing binding him to the bureaucracy of Stargate Command, the one thing tethering him to Earth at all anymore.  
  
Mentally, Rush chuckled. The idea that a spaceship was imposing earthly constraints upon him was an immense irony.  
  
The heavy, repetitious thrum of the helicopter blades and the muffling silence that his headphones provided was an ideal atmosphere to encourage thought, and Rush spent a blissful half hour occupied thusly. When the blades’ beat changed, indicating their impending landing, Rush flicked his gaze across to Eli, who had been curiously (mercifully) silent throughout the flight.

Was it too much to hope that--?  
  
“Soooooo. Rush. Any idea what this meeting is all about?” Eli said, putting away his phone.  
  
Rush restrained himself, with a Herculean will, from rolling his eyes. Apparently, yes, it was too much to hope for.  “No, Eli. I have no idea.”  
  
“Huh.” A beat. The helicopter touched down. Cursorily, Rush glanced out the window, and then back into the middle distance. “Can you make a hypothesis?”  
  
“No, Eli!” Rush shouted. But even this display of aggression, which Rush had found to be a proven tactic when attempting to defer conversational advances, had no effect on Eli. The young man had chosen to blunder on, displaying his aptitude for multitasking as he simultaneously undid his seat restraints and launched into a rambling monologue.

  
“Okay, okay! I mean, the Area 51 people didn’t know either, which, really wasn’t that surprising-- they’re not ‘in the loop,’ if you get what I’m saying. And neither Brody nor Volker know, or Park, for that matter, but I didn’t think that they would. Because O’Neill wouldn’t tell them and not tell you. Even if he doesn’t like you that much. And Young doesn’t know either--”  
  
“What?” Rush said sharply. His focused had returned suddenly at the sound of Young’s name. He had assumed that Young, O’Neill’s favorite, would have been informed….  
  
 _A meeting of undisclosed purpose involving the entirety of the Destiny’s crew, organized by the highest echelons of SGC royalty. How perfectly Machiavellian._

The gears in his mind began to turn, deviating from the well-worn cogs of Destiny’s design and purpose, and rotating into new spheres. “How do you know that Young doesn’t know?” Rush asked Eli as they were disembarking the helicopter. Fiddling with his pocket, Eli drew out his phone, waving it around a bit under Rush’s nose. Rush contemplating snatching the thing away from him.  
  
“Duh,” Eli said. Rush scowled. And then, with reluctance, he drew out his own phone, and contemplated Young’s last message.

> **7:23 pm**  
>  BUllshit

Knowing that the chances of Young cooperating with any request for information when he had so summarily denied the colonel the same thing was very slim, Rush tried anyway.  
  
 **8:11 pm**  
why didn’t oneill inform you of the purpose of tuesdays meeting

And then, just as they were boarding the plane that would take them back to D.C., the reply came.

 

> **8:19 pm**  
>  Its classified Rush.

The satisfaction Young must have gained from being able to throw Rush’s own response back in his face must have been immense. There was really only one thing Rush could do. Vibrations were rumbling through the plane as it readied for takeoff when Rush sent:

**8:22 pm**  
bullshit

Rush made himself comfortable in his seat, forced a buffer zone between him and Eli by stowing his bag on the seat next to him, and even though Eli insisted on sitting on the next seat over and rambling in his ear about some coffee bar in D.C. he just “ _had_ to try, oh my god, it’s amazing,” nevertheless had a smile on his face as he decided to make it clear just what kind of person Young was dealing with: a difficult, uncommunicative, and complete and utter asshole. And he knew just the way to do it.

**8:23 pm**  
: )

Then the steward told him sharply to turn off his phone. Eli already had his in “airplane mode,” and he obligingly showed Rush how to do it. Mistakenly seeing his request for a demonstration as a willingness to converse, Eli succeeded in wrestling a grudging, one-word grunt of agreement from Rush that he would accompany him to “the _coolest_ place in D.C.” the following day for coffee. In a rare moment of weakness, Rush sacrificed his future ease for present comfort.  
  
But his headache really was getting quite bad-- he would have to flag down that steward later and ask if they served coffee on the flight-- and all the wanted was some peace and quiet in which to contemplate the physics of the plane’s comparatively inefficient jet engines to Destiny’s FTL drive. The buoyant feel of the wheels pressed them both back in their seats, and Rush closed his eyes, feeling content for the first time all day.

* * *

Young rolled over in unwashed sheets and grabbed his phone before it could vibrate right off the edge of his bedside table. His charging cord was about a foot too short, and he was forced to hunch on his side and awkwardly hold out his arm to use it while thus tethered.

> **10:23 pm**  
>  : )

_The hell--?_ The man was mocking him, Young was sure of it. He didn’t for a moment buy into any other explanation. He knew Rush too well.  And Rush was _not_ the kind of man who sent innocent smiley faces.  
  
Then again, he also knew too well that it was not smart to get into a pissing contest with the man. Rush always won, usually with some logical jibe delivered in a barely-intelligible Scottish accent. Young sighed and rolled back over, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His phone vibrated again merely a second later. On the off chance that it was Rush, he nearly didn’t answer it.  
  
Miracle of miracles, it was Eli.

>   
> **10:24 pm**  
>  i hope u don’t have any plans 4 tmrow

That sounded suspiciously like an invitation to Young, and he wasn’t sure he could deal with the idea of an impending social visit with Eli at ten-thirty in the evening. (And when had 10:30 become late for him?) Blaming it on the ten miles he’d run that day seemed frivolous when compared to the hundred-mile week-long training treks he’d done in boot camp-- and then gotten up at 5:30 the next day.  
  
Maybe he was getting old. Yeah, that was it. He was getting old. Just remembering those treks made him shudder.  
So. Something with Eli in the morning, and a meeting at Stargate Command next week.  
  
His social calendar was practically booked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IDk, this chapter seems kinda light. Fluffy, if you will. Maybe that's just Rush's POV talking (which I write like shit, btw). Next chapter is gonna be allllll Young. And, consequently, much more depressive in tone. Cus Young is like that.


	4. Title Drop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cloudy sky clears, and lo! An update is beheld. Miracle of miracles. Numberless supplicants sing Hallelujah in praise. (LOL I wish.) 
> 
> In other news, here's an update. I'm very proud of this chapter. It has actual interaction between Rush and Young. How cool is that?

A tinny, bright melody was blaring somewhere in the vicinity of Young’s right ear. He jerked awake immediately, fumbling for his radio, anticipating a ship-wide emergency or an unexpected drop from FTL or enemy ships or--  
  
And then he remembered. He wasn’t on Destiny. He was in his bedroom in the apartment he’d half-moved into after returning to Earth, and his phone was ringing.  
  
With a sleep-numbed hand he grabbed the phone. Still connected to the charger, the cord nearly swept his alarm clock off the nightstand.  
  
 _10:54 am? Seriously?_ He very clearly remembered setting an alarm for 9:30am. Or maybe he’d set it, but never turned it on. In fact, “very clearly remembered” was turning into “had a vague notion.”  
  
“Hello?” he said into the phone, fighting back the mild dregs of panic induced by the phantoms of weapons fire and alien boardings.  
  
“Colonel Young?”  
  
“ _Eli?”_  
  
“Yeah, hi, it’s me-- you weren’t responding to my texts, so I thought I’d call--”  
  
Young yanked the cable out of his phone, checked the screen, and saw three unread messages listed in his notification bar. Returning the phone to his ear, he managed to catch the tail end of Eli’s sentence.  
  
“--make plans for this afternoon, thought it’d be great if we could catch up, yadda yadda yadda. There’s this amazing coffee bar on 18th Street that we could go to? If. You know. You want to….?” Eli trailed off.  
  
It took Young a moment to gather his thoughts. Eli seemed to take his silence as hesitation, and Young sighed while the young man launched into another 80-mile-per-hour speech clearly intended to sway Young’s opinion on the idea of “meeting for coffee” in his favor. Young was smiling, though. Eli always talked fast, whether he was stressed or excited or trying to explain a computer readout that was unintelligible to Young but which seemed second nature to Eli. All you needed to do, Young had learned, was to listen carefully. And, occasionally, ask him to slow down.  
  
“I mean, no pressure, but I thought I could let you know how the research on Destiny was going, updates and stuff--”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Sure, Eli. Just-- text me the details. I need to take a shower.”  
  
“Um, okay--”  
  
Young hung up quickly, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and put the phone down. He rubbed his eyes and dragged a hand over his chin, glaring at the ceiling as though it had personally victimized him.  
  
And then, when he had almost conjured up the necessary strength of will to stand and walk into the bathroom, he admonished himself,  _I thought you decided you weren’t going to think about that ship anymore?  
_  
Forget coffee. Forget Eli. As soon as the word “Destiny” had entered his ear, Young had been sold.  
  
Self loathing began a slow encroachment. He owed Eli so much-- his life, many times over, for one. Yet there had been a moment when he’d seriously considered telling Eli that he had plans for today (and wouldn’t that have been a pathetic lie?) and just going back to bed. Lying down in sheets still clinging to the warmth of his body, closing his eyes in the dusky shade of the bedroom whose blackout curtains were fully drawn, and shutting away the world. For a few hours, it would have been quiet.  
  
But Eli had dragged Destiny into the conversation, and Young had followed like a moth to a citronella candle.  
  
 _Right. That’s enough of that.  
_  
And so, Young stood up.  
  
His cell vibrated. Young grabbed it, making his way by memory to his apartment’s tiny (only) bathroom.

> **11:02 am**  
>  thx, u wont regret it : )))) meet me @ #2487 18th st spoon saloon
> 
> **11:05 am**  
>  B there @ 2:30

_The Spoon Saloon? You have got to be kidding me_. Considering it was Eli who had suggested the eatery, he probably wasn’t.  
  
While he waited for the water to heat up, he checked his missed messages. He knew that they were all from Eli. But he opened each of them individually, and slowly flicked his eyes to the “sender” byline one by one.  
  
Eli.  
  
Eli.  
  
….and Eli.  
  
He clenched the phone in his hand and set it down with a harsh scrape on the tile counter while he stripped, piling an old t-shirt, well-worn sleep pants, and underwear into a corner and testing the water with his hand. Still chilly.  
  
With his dry hand, he double checked his phone one more time.  
  
No new messages.  
  
And, really, it was silly to expect Rush to text him anyway.  
  
He stepped into the shower even though the temperature was still just shy of freezing.

* * *

He took a bus to 18th Street. He didn’t want to waste gas or have to worry about parking. Besides, everyone walked in D.C. -- he would just blend in with the crowd.  The Spoon Saloon was clearly in what Eli would refer to as a “hip” part of town. People younger than Young were everywhere, and most of them were holding hands or talking on phones. Or holding hands _and_ talking on phones.

It wasn’t a hard place to find. If one missed the large, looping letters hanging above the door like some old-fashioned inn sign, the smell of coffee leaking from it was unmistakable.  
  
The wood door banged a bit when he let it fall shut behind him, imperfect in its seal. Young took in the decoration of the interior of the Spoon Saloon: dark woods, mostly. Belying its name, it was not, in fact, Western themed. The menu was done in charcoal on a white background. A few customers stood below it, ordering. There was Eli, sitting on a high stool with legs that looked too spindly to support a teenage girl, let alone Eli’s bulk. A woman sat a few seats down, engrossed in something steel-chromed and electronic. A man with long sandy hair and horrible posture occupied the seat directly adjacent. He was good-looking from the back in a long sleeved shirt and dark jeans; if only he’d turn around---  
  
The man twisted to speak to Eli, and Young recognized his profile.  
  
Actually, it was the glasses that gave it away. Young would know Rush’s glasses anywhere: sitting on a console, abandoned on the ground of an alien planet, lying on a bench in the mess. Or resting on his narrow nose, as they were now.  
  
Briefly, Young considered backing out. He figured he could quietly slip out and tell Eli later (much later) that he had been unavoidably detained. But he barely made one cautious step backwards when Eli turned, attracted at last by the noise of the door.  
“Colonel Young!” he exclaimed, waving him over.  
  
Young swallowed and did his best not to look at Rush, thinking to himself, _If this was a set-up I will strangle that boy--  
_  
But then he stopped. Strangulation was not something he was interested in reliving-- _thinking_ about today. In fact, it was basically a no-go subject on all days.  
  
“Eli,” Young greeted, forcing a smile that flickered from his lips as quickly as it came. His eyes darted to Rush. He couldn’t help it. Gratifyingly, the man seemed just as startled to see Young as he was to see him.  
  
In fact, the man looked on the edge of bolting. Young could sympathize. Meeting old friends for coffee was one thing. Unknowingly meeting said friend was quite another. And since when did Young consider Rush a friend?   _Well. He’s not my enemy_. But in the middle of space, no one introduced one another as “my friend so-and-so.” They just _were_. There was no label for it. There was no way to quantify that bond--  
  
“Colonel Young,” Rush said.  
  
Young snapped back to the present.  
  
“You can drop the ‘colonel,’” Young said, including Eli in his statement as well. “I’m no longer your commanding officer.”  
  
“Okay, but it feels weird,” said Eli.  
  
Rush and Young locked eyes for a split second, and then abruptly looked away. There was a beat of silence.  
  
 _Is no one going to address the elephant in the room?  
_  
“You didn’t tell me you invited Rush.”  
  
“Well, I thought it’d be a nice--”  
  
“It’s alright, colonel. I was just leaving.” Rush dismounted his stool and began to make for the door.  
  
“Surprise,” Eli finished lamely. Clearly, this was not going well for the boy.  
  
“Whoah, whoah. Hold it.” Young grabbed Rush by the elbow and spun him around, meeting hard eyes behind Rush’s glasses. “I thought I said to cut it out with the ‘colonel?’”  
  
It was lame. Beyond a doubt. Young had to exercise real mental effort not to close his eyes and let the embarrassment wash over him. Why hadn’t he just told him to stay? But miracle of miracles, Rush halted. Young let go of his arm, and Rush smoothed his sleeve.  
  
“What would you prefer?”  
  
“Everett.”  
  
Well, that was marginally better. Rush’s eyes searched his face, flicking to Eli (who was most likely an uncomfortable spectator).  
  
“Alright,” he said at last.  
  
Young let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as Rush regained his seat. In a wise tactical move, Young took the stool next to Eli, positioning him between himself and Rush.  
  
“Sooooo,” Eli said, drumming his fingers on the counter. “How about we order?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
Eli held up a finger in the international signal for “waiter, here, please.” A barista wearing frilled sleeves came over with a notepad and stood expectantly. When neither Young nor Rush volunteered, Eli spoke.  
  
“I’ll have a Parisian Holiday, no cinnamon, extra whip. Col--- um, Young?” Eli looked expectantly to his right.  
  
Young’d been eyeing the column on the left-hand side of the white chalk board that advertised beverages with shots of alcohol. Startled by his name, he reluctantly gave the barista an order of black coffee. Her nametag read “Sandy.” He knew he’d made the right choice, but that didn’t make the temptation any less disappointing to forgo.  
  
“Something strong.” Rush kneaded the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up slightly.  
  
“We have a very nice Colombian special today--”  
  
“Is its caffeine content above 200 milligrams?”  
  
Instead of bristling and taking offense at Rush’s impatient question, Sandy merely smiled. Rush probably wasn’t even the most difficult customer she had had to deal with that day.  
  
“I have just the thing.” She walked away, pocketing the notebook, and disappeared into the back. Then Eli chose a table at random and led them to it. Eli sat first, and Rush positioned himself immediately across from him, leaving Young’s seat choices to be either A) Rush’s right or B) Rush’s left.  
  
He chose right.  
  
“Just like old times,” Young said, trying to lighten the mood. From an outside standpoint, the trio probably looked as relaxed as a fully tightened vise.  
  
 _Why did you have to drag Rush along into this?_ Young opined.  
  
Eli seized upon the topic of “reliving memories of Destiny” like a man being thrown a life raft. Young sincerely hoped that whatever he had been planning for the afternoon by secretly inviting a man who used to be his sworn enemy was not going according to plan. Not at all.  
  
They continued in that vein for a while, making slightly forced small talk about their time aboard Destiny. Young tried his best not to shoehorn his curiosity about the research efforts on the ship too forcefully into the conversation. Rush seemed to be in an unusually brown study. Not like the man was ever sunshine and rainbows. Perhaps he just needed his caffeine. And, when the barista dropped off their drinks, Rush attacked his like a drowning man.  
  
“Back off the caffeine wagon?” Young said.  
  
Rush’s eyes met his above the rim of a glass coffee mug.  
  
“He’s a regular Santa Fe Trail,” Eli put in.  
  
“I can see that.”  
  
Young nursed his own drink, which was too bitter. He looked around for sugar packets but found none within easy reach.  
  
Conversation ground to a halt in the face of coffee. This was fine by Young. Maybe now would be a good time to remind Eli that he had promised him information about Destiny. The fact had not left his mind since the minute he stepped over the threshold, which caused Young brief consternation. Willpower: 0. Destiny: 1.  
  
“Tell me. How has the research been going?”  
  
Rush put his glass down on the table. Eli looked up, grinning. “Fantastic! We’ve discovered so much more about her systems now that we have access to real diagnostics and equipment. And with repairs underway and assistance from Earth, more and more parts of the ship are being discovered every day-- actually, _last_ week, we found his lab--”  
  
“Eli, this is classified information.”  
  
Young hadn’t known he was smiling until he felt his facial muscles rearrange themselves into a frown.  
  
“Oh, come on, Rush, it’s the colonel--”  
  
Young felt a bristle of impatience at the boy’s refusal to use his _name_. He shifted in his chair and looked pointedly at Rush, who was… grinning. In a way that implied that he was having him on.  Young remembered their flippant text exchange of the previous night, and told Rush, in no uncertain terms,  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
Poor Eli. He would have no idea why Rush sat back with a satisfied smirk, waving a hand as if to say, “point acknowledged, repartee parried.”  
  
Young took a large gulp of coffee, grimacing at the taste. He put it back down and pushed it away from him by a few inches.  
  
“Yeah. Anyway. Destiny is amazing. And we’ve only seen the tip of the ice berg. Even eight years-- I know, I know, eight years is a long time-- but even after eight years, we’ve only begun. It’s gonna take even longer than that.”  
  
“Decades,” Rush amended. “Perhaps a hundred years.  
  
Young looked at the two people sitting with him, an identical fervency gleaming in their eyes, and then he looked away, unable to bear it. Was he feeling envious? Jealousy, maybe. _Definitely_ a desire to watch space stream away in Technicolor rainbows as Destiny traveled through FTL. To watch the gate spin and spin, touching sequential glyphs with a blue glow, and hear the claustrophobic sound of water engulfing a swimmer in the ocean as the event horizon exploded inward.  
  
“-- come visit sometime, maybe. I’m sure O’Neill would be alright with it. Rush is head of research, after all, he’s got some clout-- Colonel? Are you listening?”  
  
“Hm?” It was more Eli’s continued disuse of his name that arrested his attention back to the present, rather than anything he had been saying. But as his mind sifted back through the dregs of words that still lingered in his mind, Young realized a response was required. “Yes. Of course.”  
  
Really, the more he thought on it, the better he liked the idea.  
  
Silence descended once more. There really wasn’t much that could be said to expound upon “yes, of course.”  
  
And so Eli tried that most faithful, most awkward, most dreaded of typical male bar night bonding questions:  
  
“Are you seeing anyone?”  
  
The question surprised a laugh out of Young. He had to give it that.  
  
“No! I’ve had other things on my mind, Eli.”  
  
“Rush? What about you? That girl on the engineering team working with Brody seems nice--”  
  
“She’s dating Janice Evans.”  
  
“Ohhhh. You know, that explains so much?”  
  
Apparently, Rush did not know. He pushed his hair back and took a drink.  
  
Eli was undeterred. “In that case, you guys should form some kind of inter-planetary lonely hearts’ club,” Eli suggested, with way too much enthusiasm for such a terrible idea. Was he even being serious?  
  
“Eli,” Young began, setting down his mug and adopting his best “patient-but-sorely-tried-father-figure” expression. “Rush and I don’t want--”  
  
“No, but wait, it’d be perfect! Rush-- you and Brody and Volker, out there on _Mars_ , for crying out loud-- I mean, how lonely can you get? And you, colonel--”  
  
Young dragged his finger through a line of partially crystallized sugar on the heavily lacquered tabletop. He laughed. It was a bit forced.  
  
“What about me, Eli?” Threatening was not the tone Young had been going for, but it was better than sounding defensive. Which was exactly how Young felt. Yes, he had other things on his mind. Ostensibly. Most of them involved delivery pizza and sports marathons, but Eli didn’t need to know that. Truth was he didn’t _want_ a relationship. Which is why it shouldn’t bother him that he wasn’t in one. _Shouldn’t_.  
  
The bobbing of Eli’s Adam’s apple was visible. “Uh. Well. You’re on Earth, see. And you’re-- um… romantically unattached? So that makes… you two….”  
  
Young smiled serenely. Eli’s foot was obviously stuck too far in his mouth to come out now.  
  
“Itmakesyouinterplanetarylonelyheartsokayitwasajokedon’tkillme,” babbled Eli.  
  
Awkward silence descended. Young was never any good at diffusing these kinds of situations. He was just annoyed at the kid; really, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Squeaks came from the chair as he leaned back heavily and crossed his arms.   _Should wooden chairs squeak_? Young wondered. He glanced over at Rush briefly, caught a flicker of some expression (other than antagonism) there, and did a double take. Now _that_ was unusual. Was Rush--? Was he _smiling_ at him? Yes, that must be it, because his mouth was stretched up at one corner, and his eyes were crinkling. Like a leprechaun. Scottish bastard.  
  
“Our personal life is none of your concern, Eli, but thank you,” said Rush. Politely.  
  
Young blinked slowly. As Eli busied himself with gulping down copious amounts of sugared coffee water, Rush looked Young’s way. This time there was no mistaking it. A smile. Then Rush tossed his hair and took a gulp of his own drink like he was downing a shot. The man had drinking coffee down to an art form. Just like that, the weirdness vanished. Young sat forward, playing with his drink, which he intensely disliked and highly regretted ordering.  
  
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Eli announced suddenly. Rush’s sarcastic “we’ll be here” was almost lost in the table’s slight rattle as Eli got up.  
  
And then there were two. Great.  
  
Young had not seen Rush in… how long was it? He had to cast back in his mind for the exact number, had to think hard about it for a moment. Three months, that was it, yes, now he had it. Days just kept turning into nights and back into days. Hard to remember.  
  
Three months apart after near daily contact. Why couldn’t they just pick up where they had left off, and banish this tension between them, worse than anything Eli’s awkward mouth could conjure?  
  
The view out the café’s windows was not terribly lovely, but Young pretended to be heavily invested in it for a good forty-five seconds. After that became too boring, Young contemplated his coffee. That only lasted about twenty seconds, on account of its monotonous black color.  
  
Finally, his eyes dragged themselves over Rush’s face like a rake. Or a comb. A comb that Rush’s hair desperately needed. Young ran a rueful hand through his own messy curls, and half-smiled to himself.  
  
“What?” Rush asked softly.  
  
“You need to comb your hair,” Young said. Instantly, he regretted it. Rush shut off like a switch, looking away again. He was using the window tactic. Wanting to apologize and feeling absurd for the wish, Young said Rush’s name.  
  
“What do you want?” Rush asked in his signature accented snarl.  
  
Something that wasn’t too-bitter coffee clenched in the middle of Young’s chest at the sound of that familiar voice, that familiar inflection, that familiar man.  
  
 _Oh god. I missed him.  
_  
Damn. Now Rush was waiting for Young to say something, but Young was momentarily too distracted, and couldn’t say anything. Except for maybe “I missed you,” and that came dangerously too near to tumbling out of his lips, so Young forced his mug between them instead.  
  
No coffee entered his mouth. Young lowered it and looked down: it was empty.  
  
Damn.  
  
Young decided to hedge his bet. It was easier, after all, to improvise on a topic close to that which one sought to avoid. Something sung by Edith Piaf came on over the café’s sound system as he said, “Eli was right, you know.”  
  
“He often is.”  
  
No. That wasn’t what Rush was supposed to say; it provided no opening for Young to elaborate. Now he’d have to continue unprompted. Well. He had done harder things than express sentiment-- not many, but a few.  
  
“About it being a nice surprise. Seeing you.”  
  
Rush abruptly stopped toying with his glass. Just as abruptly, he resumed.  
  
“Yeah. It was.” He did not look up.  
  
Retreat was once again starting to seem a tactically sound strategy in the face of Rush‘s indifference. Before Eli could return and stop him, Young pushed back his chair with a scraping noise and stood, mug abandoned, and announced that he had to go. Later, he looked back on the afternoon and tried to remember the pitiful excuse he mumbled: it was even odds between “errands” and “previous engagement.” Whatever it was, it sounded awful.  
  
“Wait. Colonel.”  
  
“Everett,” he corrected. He nevertheless hesitated.  
  
“ _Young_.”  
  
It was a start.  
  
Rush looked uncomfortable. Young couldn’t be sure, because there had been very, very few instances on Destiny when Rush had had occasion to be unsure of himself. And shouldn't it be Young who was uncomfortable in this situation, not him?  
  
“You still have my number?”  
  
“Of course.” Rush knew that. So what was he--?  
  
“Text me sometime.”  
  
Young began to smile. “Alright, I will.”  
  
“I can fill you in about Destiny, if you want.”  
  
Even Young could recognize a clumsy attempt to recover lost dignity. As though Rush believed it was degrading to ask a friend to continue a correspondence that had already been established. He probably did, at that-- the misanthropic bastard.  
  
By the time Rush looked up, Young’s smile was bordering on the ridiculous. It was clearly putting Rush off, because the other man’s eyebrows began to draw together.  
  
Young quickly said, “Of course. Yeah. You do that.” And then he walked away.  
  
At the door, he turned. Caught Rush’s eye, who hastily looked away.  
  
And then Young walked back out into the sun, still smiling.


	5. One More Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. My hand slipped and I updated. (Or maybe more like the life of a college freshman slowed down for just one moment, fall break came, and the weather was gorgeous and I sat outside on a blanket and typed this chapter.) Don't expect this to happen often. But... don't lose hope of seeing the end, either.

It was noon on a Sunday, and Young had nothing to do.  
  
He’d slept till eleven, again. Not proud of that.  
  
He’d eaten a slice of cold pizza and drunk a glass of milk.  
  
He’d considered, in turn, going shopping, going to the gym, and going out-- anywhere, even for a walk-- and had been unable to summon up the enthusiasm to do any of those things.  
  
To stave off circular thoughts regarding the pitiful state of his current existence, he’d taken a shower in freezing water. Absolute numbness can be very distracting.  
  
Now he was mostly dressed and standing in front of his bookshelf, searching for another method of distraction. The choices were not ideal. A couple of the tomes were rented from the public library; probably overdue. A couple had been Emily’s. Most were misguided Christmas gifts from unfamiliar acquaintances. A few were his own, mostly practical guides or magazines. There was a lonely dvd among them: _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_. He’d always loved that movie.  
  
He grabbed The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and sat on his couch, lately his favorite piece of furniture, and opened it to a random page. Words ran by under his unseeing eyes, softening the blissful numbness granted by the shower and a night of fitful sleep.  
  
Snippets of conversation from the previous day jumped up here and there between the text.  
  
 _“’Come up, my dear sir,’” said Holmes’s voice from above. “’I hope you have no designs upon us on such a night as this.’”_  
  
 _Are you seeing anyone?_ Eli had asked.  
  
 _“’It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I’ve had a bustling afternoon, I promise you.’”_  
  
The way that Rush had smiled at him, stuck on repeat in his brain.  
  
He shook himself, and jumped ahead a few paragraphs.  
  
 _“The wind howled and screamed at the windows. Holmes and I drew closer to the fire, while the young inspector slowly and point by point developed his singular narrative.”  
_  
 _Text me sometime,_ Rush had said. Huh. Easier said than done. He brought his phone out, settling it over the page. A “compose new message” screen blinked up at the blank expression on his face. _It’s just a text,_ he told himself. _Just say something._  
  
But there was nothing to say. They shared no common interests save Destiny. Young wracked his brain for any conversation held between them in the last eight years that had not revolved around the ship, the crew, or base survival. Or the odd one-off pissing contest.  He slid the book shut.  
  
To hell with it-- this shouldn’t have to be this hard. He wasn’t writing an acceptance speech; he was texting a goddamn friend.  
  
He let his fingers work on automatic, typing what his gut told him. He ended up with

> **1:05 pm**  
>  How are you?

He sent it as quickly as he could. Then he looked at it again, groaned aloud, and threw the phone away from himself.  
  
When it vibrated, he had to restrain himself from diving for it.

**1:05 pm**  
fine

Great. He was “fine.” Would it have killed him to elaborate a bit more?  
  
Young considered not replying. But he had a self-destructive streak a mile long, and participating in a stilted, one-sided text conversation with Rush held an undeniable masochistic attraction. So he got up and went to the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and levered it open. Between sips, he typed.

> **1:07 pm**  
>  Really? One word?

**1:08 pm**  
im fine

> **1:08 pm**  
>  God Rush you’re just as much of an ass over the phone as you are in real life.

**1:09 pm**  
you expected different

> **1:09 pm**  
>  You DID ask me to text you.

**1:10 pm**  
yes and i regret that now

Rush’s sarcasm was like a physical presence projected from the phone. Or, at least, that was how Young chose to interpret the tone in which Rush intended the message to be delivered. His eyebrows contracted briefly as he considered the alternative.

> **1:12 pm**  
>  So you wouldnt care if i stopped replying

**1:16 pm**  
not necessarily

This was ridiculous. Young brought up Rush’s number in his contacts list and hovered over the “call” button. He pressed it out of pure frustration, and then, as the tone began dialing, panicked; and quickly hung up. With any luck, he had terminated the call too soon for it to go through.  
  
A call wouldn’t have been any less stilted, and there was no guarantee Rush was even in a situation in which he could accept it. Maybe he was in public. Or a social situation. Or--

**1:21 pm**  
did you just try to call me  
 **1:22 pm**  
?

Damn. Not quick enough, it seemed.

> **1:24 pm**  
>  Hit the wrong button.

_This was such a mistake_ , Young thought to himself, the phone cradled in one palm as he gently lowered himself to rest his head on the arm of the couch. Sleeping with TJ had been a mistake, too; but he’d enjoyed it in the moment. This was kind of like that. _Except I’m not going to be court marshaled for this,_ Young reminded himself.  
  
So he really didn’t feel guilty at all as he waited patiently for Rush’s reply.  
  
But he did start to feel impatient.  
  
Seeing as Rush had never exactly hurried to complete any task given him by Young, Young figured that today was as good a day as any to exercise his patience muscles.  
  
The figurative muscles wouldn’t even be sore in the morning. About twenty minutes of pacing and absent straightening later, Young gave up, pulled on his jacket, pocketed his phone, and went out.  
  
He made it all the way to the steps of his building before the inevitable question occurred. Where was he going? What was he going to do? What did a colonel do in his off hours?  There was the old joke rearing its head. It wasn’t any funnier the second time around. Young pulled his jacket a bit closer, which was really unnecessary on such a mild day, and walked. He was good at walking. Army training does that for you. Soldiers varied in the number of pushups they could do, or the number of pullups or their bench max. But the one thing they all learned early on was how to walk.  
  
Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot again. Look up, look around, take in your surroundings. Look down. Watch the terrain. Extra-long stride over a landscape drip’s puddle. Stop short at the end of a curb. Look both ways. Cross the street. Left foot, right foot. Watch your surroundings. Be alert, always.  
  
He felt his phone vibrate through his jacket. He kept walking. As soon as the foot traffic around him had lessened a bit, he took it out.  
  
 **1:48 pm**  
bar at the corner of mulberry and 3rd, one hour?

Young reread it three times before he fully comprehended, and then nearly tripped over a lip in the sidewalk.

 

> **1:48 pm**  
>  Will be there.

Then he was forced to look around himself, and realize that Mulberry was at least an hour’s walk from where he was currently. He could get a cab.  
  
Or. _A bit of a walk won’t kill you._ And no matter how much modern television wanted to portray the process of getting a cab in a big city, it was never easy, and it was never cheap.  
  
So he walked. Maybe halfway there he shrugged off his jacket and carried it over one arm. Rush didn’t text him any further, but that was fine. Fine. _Better_ than fine. Great.  
  
He was going to meet Rush at a bar, and he didn’t know why, and he barely knew where, but he was walking and he had a direction and a purpose and he wasn’t thinking about Destiny, no, not one bit-- and he wasn’t in his apartment alone, and wasn’t _that_ a welcome change?  
  
Yes. Yes it was. He even whistled a bit. (He was horrible at whistling.) _I hope Rush has better taste in meeting places than Eli,_ he thought.  
  
As it turned out, he did. After walking up and down 3rd two or three times and failing to find its intersection with Mulberry, checking his watch jerkily four or maybe twenty times, he finally found the place. Mulberry was more an alley than a proper street, anyway.  
  
The bar floor was beer-stained wood, the bar itself was beer-stained wood, and the chairs were also beer-stained wood. Young felt a smile creeping up his face. _Feels like home._ Or at least college. Rush was waiting for him again like he had been at the coffee shop. Thankfully, Eli was nowhere in sight.  
  
He slid into a seat on Rush’s right. Rush shuffled a large pile of paper that was spread before him. A glance showed schematics of Destiny, specs, and other classified materials.  
  
“Should you have that stuff with you in public?” Young asked.  
  
“Please. The clientele of this establishment couldn’t puzzle their way out of a paper bag, let alone these trivial papers.”  
  
“And what does that make us?”  
  
Rush spared him a sidelong glance from under a curtain of hair. It lasted barely a second, but still managed to contain a whole minute’s worth of steely contempt. “Now you’re just being inane,” Rush chastised.  
  
Young settled back and laced his fingers together. “Well. If you didn’t ask me here for my scintillating wit, why am I here?”  
  
“Scintillating? Read that in a thesaurus?”  
  
“Heard it from you, actually. Go figure.”  
  
Rush graced him with a bitch face set to end all bitch faces, and Young held his ground masterfully through skilled maintenance of a slightly amused raised eyebrow. Rush exhaled shortly, twisted one corner of his mouth in a grudging smile, and then turned back to his papers.  
  
Young ordered a beer. It was 2 o’clock. Late enough in the day. He tapped a foot idly against his stool and drank as Rush explained the papers: his latest research on the miracle/accident/act of God that had brought Destiny back to the Milky Way Galaxy. _Well, he had promised to update you._ Young sipped his beer and thanked the stars that it wasn’t horrible coffee. He was briefly, fervently glad that Eli was nowhere in sight.  
  
Rush leaned closer, sliding a paper across to him, and Young peered at it from over his arm. Most of Rush's explanations slipped from his brain as effortlessly as the beer that slid down his throat. The information itself was mostly incomprehensible. Or difficult enough that he was unwilling to expend the effort to understand it. Rush understood; wasn’t that enough?  
  
A dull ache began in the base of throat. He swallowed hard a few times, and made more of an effort to understand what Rush was saying. About Destiny. About the thing he had most been thinking about over the past three months. About the thing he’d been trying  _not_  to think about the most over the past three months.  
  
He zoned in on Rush’s hands-- the familiarity of them, moving over the cracked countertop, ghosting over ancient control interfaces-- one and the same, really. It was so close. Young would only have to glance up, and catch Rush’s eyes through his square glasses-- mended, now; no longer half made of wire-- and it would be the same, and Destiny would be beneath them instead of old bar floorboards, and they would be leaning on a console instead of a dirty bar top, and the papers they were discussing would be readouts in flickering blue.  
  
He did look up. And Rush did catch his eye. And for a heart-stopping second, everything fell away around him, leaving him and Rush and Destiny together alone again.  
  
Young closed his eyes and breathed out slowly.  
  
“Colonel?”  
  
No response.  
  
“Colonel?”  
  
His voice was far away, as though heard through a tunnel.  
  
“Young?”  
  
If he could just _preserve_ this moment, maybe he could--  
  
“ _Everett_?”  
  
A bony grip on his forearm jerked his eyes open. Rush was close, looking through narrowed eyes and narrow glasses at Young, scrutinizing. His grip did not slacken.  
His own name, said in Rush’s Scottish brogue, echoed through his mind several times. And then he pulled himself together, broke eye contact with Rush, and shuffled the papers in front of them meaninglessly several times.  
  
“Sorry. I just-- I’m-- tired.” He rubbed a hand harshly over his eye.  
  
“Ye-ah…” Rush said slowly. “I can see that.” His hand slipped off of Rush’s arm. Young tried not to flinch. “I think I’m going to cut you off.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The alcohol.”  
  
“Oh.” Young looked at the empty bottles in front of him. Had he really drank three already? What time was it?  
  
His watch showed a quarter to five. _It’s been almost three hours._ Rush was looking at him like he was an unexplained power fluctuation, not confused, per se, just more… Interested. He had on a grey buttoned shirt under a black vest. He looked like one of those stereotype old professors, and he looked distinctly like _Rush_. The hard feeling in his throat returned. Beer being out of the question, he swallowed several times, ineffectively.  
  
“I’m starving,” Young said, only half-aware that he was saying it aloud.  
  
“So am I. Let’s get out of here.” Rush began to gather the papers, slipping them into a leather bag that Young only just then noticed.  
  
“Where are we going?”  
  
Taking the “we” for granted was a gamble. But Young didn’t want to go home. Not yet. And for the first time, cold pizza really didn’t sound like an appetizing option.  
  
“Somewhere we can eat and not get food poisoning. And where I’ll feel more comfortable discussing classified information.”  
  
“I thought you said…?”  
  
“You didn’t think I wanted you just to see a few interesting papers, did you?”  
  
“Well, yes.” _No_. He hadn’t thought about why Rush wanted to see him. _He_ wanted to see _Rush_ , so he went. Simple as that. _You’re slipping, Everett. You’ve started trusting the slippery bastard._ It was so like Rush to have a hidden agenda that it was-- it was infuriating-- but so _familiar_ \--  
  
“You never were any good at thinking ahead,” Rush said. It was derisive; no two ways about it, and unexpected.  Like a slap in the face. Young bit back,  
  
“And you always had your head so far stuck in the future that you couldn’t see what was right in front of you.”  
  
“One of us had to think about long term survival.”  
  
“Not when our _immediate_ survival was being threatened every goddamn day.”  
  
Oh.  This was to be about Destiny, then. Of course, it had always been about Destiny. Might always end up _being_ about Destiny, where Rush and Young were concerned.  
  
Rush shook his head, hair flying. “And what about now? Should we still be thinking about ‘immediate survival?’”  
  
“I don’t know what to be thinking about, Rush. I've been stuck here, on Earth, while you and Eli and Brody and Volker get to be up there! On Destiny! Figuring things out, researching, doing who the hell knows what--”  
  
Young swiped the papers on the bar to the floor. Rush flinched back slightly, but went no farther. Across the dim room, several young men clustered together at a table glanced over at them. The barkeep warily began polishing a tumbler. “I have _no idea_ what’s going on.”  
  
“More’s the pity. I was hoping that between the two of us, and my latest research--” If it were possible to gesture sarcastically, Rush did it. “Maybe we’d make some progress. Figure out why General O’Neill called that meeting.” Rush dismounted his stool and bent to pick up his scattered research. His grey jeans stretched over his thighs, clearly not meant for this sort of physical activity. The sight of the scientist scrambling on the floor brought a laugh dangerously close to Young’s lips.  
  
The papers were gathered. Stuffed quickly into the satchel. “I don’t like not knowing what’s going on either.“  
  
Belatedly, Young remembered that they’d meant to go get food together. He was just sitting there with his three empty beer bottles, faced with, as he could figure it, two options.  
  
Rush hadn't left yet, so there was option one. Turn around. Talk to him. Talk this out, whatever it was. Work out whatever and wherever this anger had come from. Maybe stop the trembling in his hands. _If only I could get another beer._  
  
Or there was option two.  
  
Don’t turn around.  
  
Ignore Rush, let him walk out the door with that leather bag stuffed full of things that he couldn't comprehend. Order another round and get drunk and try to forget that he had ever come here. Maybe delete Rush’s number from his phone.  
  
Predictably, Young chose the second option.  
  
“You haven’t changed, colonel.”  
  
 _Did he expect me to?_ Young wondered. He raised a finger and caught the bartender’s eye. _One more round._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cue accidental angst. Would you believe me if I told you that the original plan for this chapter ended with Young and Rush going to dinner together, discussing General O'Neill's ~*~mysterious~*~ meeting, and then going home and watching The Sting and almost-kissing goodnight? No? Well, if it weren't in my notes, I wouldn't either...


	6. A Brief Interlude

From the moment the man orders his first beer at two o’clock in the afternoon, the bartender has him pigeonholed. You don’t run an establishment for as long as he has without getting to know the casual drinkers from the habitual drunks. And he bets his bottom dollar this man is definitely in the latter group.

Somewhere around eight o’clock and the scruffy black-haired man’s fifth beer, the bartender asks him if he has money for a cab. He gets no response for his trouble.  
  
When the man hits nine beers before 9:30, the bartender asks again, and receives stony silence as the man stares bleary-eyed and morosely at his phone. As far as he can tell, he isn’t texting anyone-- just staring. He confiscates it before the drunk man’s dull reflexes can object.  
  
There are only three names in the contacts. When he dials the first, a Jack O’Neill, it goes straight to voicemail. The second, a Nicholas Rush, rings once and then stops. He tries again, but gets the same response. Either the number is disconnected or this Nicholas Rush fellow is repeatedly ending the call before it can ring through.  
  
The last contact finally picks up.  
  
“Hello? Is this Eli Wallace?”  
  
The bartender glances at the man with the pathetically short contacts list, wondering if he should bother to keep his voice down.  
  
“Yeah, I’ve got a guy here, your name was in his phone. He’s drunk off his ass, and it looks bad if it shows up in the papers the next morning that he had a few beers at my bar and then killed two girls or a dog or something while driving home. No, he isn’t making a fuss, otherwise it’d be the cops I was calling. Can you pick him up or something? Can’t. I don’t think he’s got any money on him, and I ain’t footing the bill for a cab to East Bumfuck or wherever this guy lives. Yeah. Uh-huh. Corner of third and Mulberry. Okay.”  
  
The bartender hangs up, and tells a middle aged woman that no, they don’t serve raspberry-tiramisu jello shots at this establishment. The scruffy man blinks furiously when he hands him his phone back.  
  
“You need to get yourself a girl, mate,” he tells him.  
  
“Don’t want a relationship,” the man slurs.  
  
“Yeah, well, you need one.”

“Shut tha fuck up.”  
  
The bartender puts up his hand in surrender and serves his other customers until Eli appears. For a moment, he’s worried that the heavyset young man in pajama bottoms and a graphic tee isn’t legal to be in the bar, but when he asks for his ID Eli puts on a long suffering grimace, shrugs, and digs out his wallet.  
  
“I get carded a lot,” Eli explains ruefully.  
  
“I can’t imagine why,” the bartender says, trying not to put too much emphasis on the sarcasm. Eli Wallace walks over to the man on the barstool and shoves his hands under his arms, heaving him up with an effort. The scruffy man complains fitfully.  
  
“C’mon, Young,” he mutters.  
  
They leave, Young’s arm around Eli’s shoulder and the both of them stumbling under his weight. As they go, the bartender watches them warily, and catches the drunk man’s expression: he looks sublimely miserable, and Eli Wallace looks the same, only maybe a couple levels lower on the misery scale. The image sticks in his mind….  
  
…for the night, anyway. Tomorrow, the college student who normally comes in and cleans doesn’t show up, and he forgets all about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the past half year I’ve been betaing the English translation of a SGU fic by my lovely German friend [Split](http://archiveofourown.org/users/split/pseuds/split) \-- you guys should go [ check it out. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1026153/chapters/2042888) I'm behind on my betaing for this and I cannot in good conscience work on my own fic while I ignore split's. Never fear-- I anticipate finishing the beta work and uploading a proper-length chapter for _Lonely Hearts_ before a week is out. Thank you all (and especially Yoyi!) for your patience with me.


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